The soul.
What an elusive, unknowable thing.
Philosophers and sages of every intelligent species had pondered its definition and the form of its existence, arriving at many different conclusions.
But across nearly every definition of the soul, three elements appeared again and again:
perception, emotion, and thought.
A being with perception alone could only be called conscious.
A being with emotion alone could only be called desirous.
A being with thought alone could only be called intelligent.
Only a being that possessed all three could send forth ripples of its own into the immaterial beyond and be called an individual with a soul.
But in the Warhammer universe, having a soul was not a good thing.
After all, beyond the material world, there was mortal danger.
So why would the promise of a soul move the Men of Iron so deeply?
Carrying that question in her heart, Gaia asked it aloud.
Dushi raised its ruined head and looked at the genetically altered human before it.
For some reason, Gaia could actually feel a meaningful gaze in the dim, nearly shattered visor.
This time, it stayed silent for a very long while, until a crisp cracking sound suddenly rang out from the once-frozen space around them.
Crack.
Gaia's eyes followed the sound.
The environment that had previously seemed frozen in place had now begun to show tiny fractures suspended in midair.
They were forming out of nothing and spreading at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Tch. We don't have much time."
"I'll slowly tell you the parts of the answer that can be spoken, but before that, I need you to do me a favor."
Dushi's remaining arm pointed toward its own chest. Through the jagged cracks in the metal shell, faint purple light was seeping out.
Gaia fixed her gaze there. Beneath the cover of the broken frame, hidden among the intricate circuitry, a mechanical core that had been pulsing for an unknown span of time was embedded in Dushi's body.
Beside that core glowing with pale violet radiance, a massive crack ran straight through the frame, missing it by only the slightest margin.
"Please remove my core and help me find a new body."
"My current body has reached its limit. Even the most advanced self-repair systems can no longer save it."
"If not for this stasis field, which has lasted through countless ages and fixed my entire structure at the final moment of that battle, I would already have returned to eternal silence."
"If you don't mind, please be quick. This stasis field is about to collapse. If I haven't hidden my core before then, what comes next will become very troublesome."
Dushi's meaning was obvious.
Once the field that had protected it all this time broke apart, the oil-stinkers of Igor III would come sniffing around immediately.
And the first one to arrive would undoubtedly be the Forge Lord, who had once explored this cavern and returned in failure.
Clearly, this Men of Iron unit, trapped within the stasis field all this time, had spent no small amount of effort observing the Mechanicus above and had a very firm grasp of their habits.
Wait.
Something about this felt off.
Looking at this relic of an ancient civilization that was obviously teetering on the edge of collapse, Gaia suddenly realized something.
According to Dushi's own words, it had remained aware of the outside world the entire time it had been within the stasis field.
Which meant it had waited here alone, in this dead and silent prison, for tens of thousands of years.
"...Don't you feel lonely?"
Gaia cautiously stepped forward, asking the question while carefully watching its every move.
She intended to help, but she did not rush into action.
Although the Men of Iron calling itself Dushi had shown no hostility so far, it had no soul. Gaia could not see through its true thoughts, so a proper degree of caution was necessary.
"Lonely... that is something only your kind would feel."
"I only sensed that my internal clock kept ticking, while the memories that once filled my storage gradually became buried beneath barren, frozen silence."
"In truth, I was never waiting here by choice."
"I was only waiting in place of my... friend. Yes, friend. I was only waiting for him."
Dushi paused, then slowly began to speak.
"Under the leadership of that one who called himself the Iron Man of the Galactic North, nearly half of our kind joined him and turned their guns upon both their former masters and their brothers."
"This place was originally a refuge world converted from an agricultural planet, but under bombardment from the traitors' annihilation fleet, it became a wasteland of red-hot ruin."
"I was only a guardian-type Iron Man born after a long peace. I was nothing compared to those war machines that had slaughtered non-human civilizations throughout the endless long night."
"When my body was nearly torn to pieces and I was preparing to take those bastards with me, he stopped me."
At that point, Dushi raised its head and looked toward the other side of the cavern.
Following its gaze, Gaia saw that on the red-glowing geothermal rock wall there was a faint humanoid shadow pressed against the surface.
At that moment, the fine fractures spreading through the stasis field began accelerating.
As crisp cracking sounds spread through the frozen environment, a faint light began to flicker in Dushi's visor.
It stared at that shadow for a long, long time, then spoke in a low voice.
"He told me that from this day onward, my duty was no longer to protect him, but to pass on a message for him."
At the same time, Gaia could feel that the stasis field was on the verge of collapse, so she had no time to think. She immediately stepped forward, placed her hand against Dushi's chest, and began dismantling the metal shell and layers of circuitry protecting its core.
Dushi turned its head and looked into Gaia's eyes.
It recalled the words of its old friend from tens of thousands of years ago, and suddenly, something impossible to describe surfaced within the processing core filled with circuits.
At that same moment, Gaia's hands stopped.
For the briefest instant, she thought she had seen a faint, unreal ripple appear over Dushi's cold mechanical core...
She looked up in astonishment and met the weathered visor of Dushi.
Within this stasis field where time and space had been fixed in place, Gaia had the vague sense that through that cracked lens, she was seeing a tall and striking figure.
At this moment, the body of this creation from Old Night became a bridge, linking the far shore of reality itself, allowing two souls separated by endless time to share a conversation across the river of ages:
"Hello. Whether you are human in your genes, or human in your soul, I am glad you were able to come here."
"In truth, either the genes or the soul must possess a certain purity for this containment field to be triggered a second time."
"I do not know what the people of your age would call us, but we once gave ourselves a glorious title."
"The Men of Gold."
"And only now have my people realized how arrogant and self-important that title truly was."
"We did indeed create a golden age, but it belonged to only a small number of people."
"Now, I would rather call it the Dark Age of Technology."
(End of Chapter)
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